Discuss your favorite year of the decade spanning from 1990 to 1999.

I added a poll for more consistent results.

I favor 1997 myself. Good year, good times. :]

1999, Many great things worldwide and personally happened during 1999

Culturally Gen Y beginnings with a lot of teen pop but still has a very good balance of rock and alternative as well as Rap, Hip hop and such

Movies were the best this year!!! The Matrix, American Beauty, FC, American Pie, Austin Power, etc2

I MISS 1999!!! the peak of millenium HYPE around the world

i was still a baby then but i like 1993 because has the best of the 1990s but with a light 1980s innocent vibe
but during my childhood my favorite year is 1999 with pokemon and the very modern vibe then.

1993
1994
1996
1998

Those years really stick out for me, looking back.

All years, for I was happy to be alive and breathing!

All years, for I was happy to be alive and breathing!


same here.

I picked 1991. It definitely is the most interesting year of the decade to me on a number fronts:

-The Gulf War
-The USSR breaks up
-The '90s only recession, making this year an important test to reinvent the economy for growth, which was successful.
-IMO the best music of the decade, and more than just Nirvana.
-'90s TV starts to show itself with the Simpsons really popular, Seinfeld and Home Improvement start to hit its stride, and Nickelodeon's Nicktoons begins.
-Overall, a fun year with just enough '80s holdovers to keep those types happy while pointing at what's to come that still shapes our lives to this day.

I picked 1991. It definitely is the most interesting year of the decade to me on a number fronts:

-The Gulf War
-The USSR breaks up
-The '90s only recession, making this year an important test to reinvent the economy for growth, which was successful.
-IMO the best music of the decade, and more than just Nirvana.
-'90s TV starts to show itself with the Simpsons really popular, Seinfeld and Home Improvement start to hit its stride, and Nickelodeon's Nicktoons begins.
-Overall, a fun year with just enough '80s holdovers to keep those types happy while pointing at what's to come that still shapes our lives to this day.


Yes, 1991 should be way up there on anybody's list of 90's years for all of those reasons, plus many people also forget that the World Wide Web first went online in August of '91. Granted it wouldn't take off for a few more years, but featuring the development of probably the biggest technological advancement since television is certainly something that adds greatly to the significance of any year.

Having said all that though, I'd personally put '91 as my second favorite year of the decade behind only 1994 for four reasons.

1. Musically, you could make a strong case for 1994 being the best year of the decade. For albums, it featured Soundgarden's Superunknown (considered by some to be the best album of the original Grunge era), Illmatic from Nas and Ready to Die from Biggie Smalls (certainly two of the greatest Hip-Hop albums ever), as well Nirvana's first post-Kurt Cobain release with their Unplugged album, and the introduction of groups like Weezer, Green Day, and The Offspring into the mainstream.

2. '94 was an incredible year for movies. You've got everything from Pulp Fiction, to the Jim Carrey Trilogy (The Mask, Ace Ventrua, Dumb & Dumber), to Forrest Gump and The Lion King. Throw in a few more gems like Shawshank Redemption, The Crow, and Clear and Present Danger (my personal favorite of the Clancy movie adaptions), and it all adds up to an awesome year in film.

3. 1994 was probably the absolute peak of the 16-bit era of video gaming. It's hard to top a year that featured Donkey Kong Country, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, and Super Metroid all coming out within a few months of each other. The fact that Final Fantasy VI (my favorite 2D RPG) was also released that year is just icing on the cake.

4. Pop culturally, it was an extremely significant year. You had everything from the OJ chase, to the Tonya Harding saga, to the death of Kurt Cobain, and Paula Jones suing a sitting U.S. President for sexual harassment. Also, the World Cup was in the U.S.A. that year, which was pretty cool.

Probably the only downside for me personally was the Baseball strike that summer, which was pretty devastating to me at the time as a big time 7 year old baseball fan. Other than that, awesome year.

1992 to 1998 were my best years!

I picked 1991. It definitely is the most interesting year of the decade to me on a number fronts:

-The Gulf War
-The USSR breaks up
-The '90s only recession, making this year an important test to reinvent the economy for growth, which was successful.
-IMO the best music of the decade, and more than just Nirvana.
-'90s TV starts to show itself with the Simpsons really popular, Seinfeld and Home Improvement start to hit its stride, and Nickelodeon's Nicktoons begins.
-Overall, a fun year with just enough '80s holdovers to keep those types happy while pointing at what's to come that still shapes our lives to this day.


I agree.  1991 was the best year of the 90s.  I liked how the 80s were coming to an end when Nirvana hit the scene.  I mean there were still some good 80s shows, like Growing Pains, but all of that looked too corny and happy.

Plus, there was a lot of good rock bands during that time like Counting Crows and Toad the Wet Sprocket. 

95' cuz I was born then  ;)

It's hard to say which is my favorite year of the 90's, I liked most of them for different reasons. It's easier to say which are my least favorite years, which are 1990 and 1998 because my personal life was not so great in those years. Overall, I voted 1992 as the all-around best year. In 1996 the summer was a great time, one of best summers of my life, but the rest of the year not so much. 1999 was good as well.

The span of 1996-1997 carries the most nostalgic weight for me. I graduated from preschool and began kindergarten during this time; I had a next-door friend whom I played with a lot; I started getting into some of the music on the radio while driving with my mom; this year span just really stands out to me.

As far as music/pop culture goes, I'd have to say 1993-94. It just seemed like a really creatively progressive time.

Personally I'd have to say 1998, that's when I finally got a good-paying job after working at a series of sh!t jobs. :P

I am still decided!

I miss 1992, 1993 and 1994 the most. Not because of the then-current music, but because a lot of 80's music videos and songs were still played on TV and radios. Especially here in Continental Europe there were a lot of 80's holdovers in terms of fashion, trends and music. I also miss those years because I was happier in kindergarten as opposed to elementary and mid school. ;)

I miss 1992, 1993 and 1994 the most. Not because of the then-current music, but because a lot of 80's music videos and songs were still played on TV and radios. Especially here in Continental Europe there were a lot of 80's holdovers in terms of fashion, trends and music. I also miss those years because I was happier in kindergarten as opposed to elementary and mid school. ;)


i agree, in europe and latinamerica the 1990s were only a more laidback version of the 1980s

I'd go with 1991 to but I would merge it with 1990 as well. Those were the most interesting years of the decade to me. The Gulf War and the fall of the USSR. Both of these events brought the US out of the shellshock it had been in for the past 2 decades.
I actually like these two years mostly because it was the closest to the 80s. It was basically the end of the stuff I really loved in the 80s and beginning of the 90s era. As a big metal fan 1991 was the last big year before it faded away ( although there's still a ton of great metal bands even now, just not mainstream). TV wise it was the start of the reality craze we still have today. I still say Rescue 911 started it. Damn you William Shatner!
  There were still a ton of great movies and TV shows but the 80s feel was long gone by 1992/93.

1990-1992 kind of run together to me. Starting in 1993, the years themselves start to stand out more.

1992- An entire year devoted to shameless debauchery and dissipation.

Ahhhh, so many good years... Having experienced all of the years in the 90s, I would say that most of them were cool.  For me, 97 had its ups and downs.  I'd say the the tail end of 98 sort of sucked (although the rest of that year rocked!)...

1999 sums up all of the BAD that came from this decade.  All the great rock music was gone (replaced with here-today-gone-tomorrow bubblegum boy bands, and the short-lived rap-metal genre), rap was beginning its downslide (it has really never recovered) and  other things got 'too extreme'  for example, there was late-90s wrestling that seemed awesome at the time but in retrospect truly showed how low-brow our tastes really were....and then there was Woodstock 99...which started off promising and then ended up being nothing but a "profit-stock" that ended in fires, riots, rapes, etc. etc.

Early 90s were sweet!  It was the last true, authentic movement in rock and roll music.... rap was still great because it was still a 'legit' genre and you didn't have songs being sampled just for the sake of trying to capitalize off a previous classic song (that mindset was still a couple of years away).  Rock was smashing because there was still a burst of creativity that is sorely lacking today.  Saturday morning TV was still worth watching, the cartoons were still cool like in the 80s.  ...and who can forget the cowboy days of the internet & chat rooms and AOL?!?    Man, despite all of the things we do on the 'net today, it just seemed so much more underground & neater back then.... back then the Internet wasn't that "cool"... it was still a land reserved for nerds, dorks, computer-geeks, etc.  Back when I started using the Internet & AOL to send Instant Messages, I would have been beaten up after school by the other kids because I was doing geeky things on a geeky computer.    Man, times have changed....

I like this site... brings back memories.

I experienced the 90's.  I remember the 80's-like vibe in the beginning to the bubble gum pop influence part towards the end.  So in this case, I would have to say 1994 is the most 90's year - no longer influenced by the 80's and right before the millenium took over.  Bands like Hole, Sonic Youth, and Counting Crows would play on alternative radio stations.  I remember it was right before the internet took off, most people that had it had dial up.  It seems like a long time ago and drastically different to today's culture. 

Well I was born in 1995, So obviously I picked it! ;D. But honetly the only years I remember of the 90s are 1998 and 1999 and a bit of 1997, But I had no idea what years were and they were very, very blurry memories  :P I do however, remember some very fun moments from 1999. I remember when I was in Pre-School and the Millennium New Year Celebration. I'm a 2000s kid, so the early 2000s are more nostolgic to me!  But I remember Britney Spears first hit song that came out that was very popular in 1999 which was "Hit Me Baybe One More Time." I remember 1999 being a fun year full of memories and happy moments. 8)

I miss the years 1997 through 1999 the most. I turned 16 in 1997, and my family moved to a new town, where I made my best friends, (who are still my best friends to this day).

My "coming of age" years were a non-stop blast of being old enough to venture out without parental supervision, yet not an adult with adult responsibilities. I got to do alot of things from going out in huge 30-person groups to movies or bowling every weekend to being a pothead , (I gave it up when I became an adult), to losing my virginity to rocking out to Deftones and Garbage.

These three years are still what I consider to be the best three years of my life.

I'd say '96 (I can't vote).

You had Pokemon (in Japan, at least, so in the U.S. it was probably known only to Japan enthusiasts), PS1, N64, Sega Saturn, post-grunge (though not a lot of people like this, it marked the end of the grunge era), anime and manga just starting to get popular, boy bands the same, etc.

Having been born in '94, my own memories of '96 are scarce. Still, in retrospect, I'd say it was a pretty good year.

1991. Lotsa fun that year.

I can't really single out any one year; there were good things about all ten of them. For example, in 1998 I graduated from high school and moved on to college.

My decision is an easy one. Personally, I think the 90s is a magical decade that no other era can compare to. And all ten years are great for different reasons. I'm going to vote for a year that had a memorable movie titles released and a couple of my all-time favorite video games. Television was okay, but the best part, apart from purely personal reasons, was the music. This year saw the release of my top album of the twentieth century...OK Computer by Radiohead. It also saw the release of "Got Til It's Gone" by Janet Jackson, "MMMBop" by Hanson and a bunch of other classics, too many to list. The year I select is...

1997